Gary and others,
I did some gull watching Friday at the same spots you mention. There was
one Thayer's at the Allen playfields, and a first winter ( I believe)
glaucous nearby at the corner of Cook Rd. and Chuckanut Drive. Shortly after
seeing the glaucous at this location, I found two immature glaucous gulls at
the west end of Dahlstedt. One of the two glaucous here was clearly larger
than nearby glaucous-winged gulls, and the other was somewhat smaller. So,
I think there are three first or second winter glaucous in this area. I saw
no definite herrring gulls, although one bird at the Allen fields was
suspicious
Greg Toffic
Everett

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Bletsch" <garybletsch at yahoo.com>
To: "tweeters tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:45 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Skagit gulls & gull RFI


Dear Tweeters,

Today, after a jolly field trip led by Phil Wright to Rosario Head, I looked
at some gulls on Samish and Butler Flats (Skagit County).

At Allen ballfields was an immature Glaucous Gull, in a flock of about
fifteen mostly Glaucous-winged Gulls. This site is along Chuckanut Drive,
right across the road and west of W.D. Foods, the little grocery store for
the area, at Sam Bell Road.

A few minutes later, I found a flock of about 200 mostly Glaucous-winged
Gulls at the extreme west end of Dahlstedt Road (NE of the Cook
Road-Interstate 5 interchange, at Exit 232, in a field between the railroad
tracks and Old Highway 99). A second immature GLAUCOUS GULL was here, with a
slightly different pattern of flecking compared to the other bird.

Also with this big flock was at least one good THAYER's GULL.

To my question. At both locations, there were small numbers of gulls that
looked somewhat like Herring Gulls, but I was not sure about them. There was
one of them at Allen, and two or three at Dahlstedt. They fit the
illustration of a "vega" American Herring Gull in Sibley quite well, but I
don't know if that's what they were. I don't even know if those occur here.
These were large, pink-legged gulls, with large yellow bills sporting a
single red spot. The bills were heavy and rather "blob-ended," with good
gonydeal angle. They each had fairly dark mantles, but I am sure they were
not Westerns or WEGU X GWGU hybrids. They had a lot of dark winter marking
on the white heads, ruling out pure Westerns. They had pale irides, of a
yellowish color. The pattern on the underside of the wingtips best matched
that of an American Herring Gull, with too much dark for a Thayer's, but not
enough for a Western or for the GWGU X WEGU hybrids that I am used to
seeing.
All in all, the birds seemed like American Herring Gulls in every way,
except for the too-dark mantle, and perhaps also in a subtle difference in
jizz.

So, of course, most Tweeters don't want to wade through all that text and
try to tell me what I saw. "Show us a photo," they'll say, but I don't have
a camera.

Is there a good website full of gull photos that would be useful for birders
in Washington? I have still not upgraded my birding library from my old
Grant gull book.

Thanks,

Gary Bletsch

Is there



Gary Bletsch Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA
garybletsch at yahoo.com



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